Sunday, March 22, 2009

A Perfect Poem

Today remains Sunday, 22 March 2009.

My very dear friend and guru Ms. NMI some time ago turned me on to daily reading of G. Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.(http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/)

Today’s poem thereon is one everyone in their right mind will wish they had written.

"Introduction to Poetry"

by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins, from The Apple That Astonished Paris. © University of Arkansas Press, 1996.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love the way this poem engages the senses--and makes me smile. I will say no more, not wishing to tie it to a chair.

1:26 PM  

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